Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Are we?” said the Rajah.

  “But I don’t choose you should leave me to suffer the sole blame. I accuse you of having bribed me to poison your cousin.”

  “You yelp like the pi-dog you are,” said the Rajah. “Where is he?” There were death-sounds in the darkness — groans now, and a noise of struggle. “Is he down there?”

  The Madrasi went a step nearer. “You deny it?”

  “Damn you, yes, you liar!” said the Rajah, and he struck him. The Madrasi clutched the Rajah’s wrists and forced him backwards along the broken gallery. The Rajah’s cousin forced himself out between Hawkes and F.9, pushed past Chullunder Ghose and ran towards them.

  “Stop that!” he commanded. But he paused and let an enigmatically lean smile linger on his lips as F.11 — lantern held high — ran, too late, along the gallery. The lantern lit the Rajah’s face. He saw his cousin. The Madrasi tripped him and leaned on him, bending him backwards, but agony changed to maniac, stark hatred on the Rajah’s face as his eyes blazed at his cousin and he fell, with the Madrasi clinging to him, somersaulting down into the stinking darkness. They were striking at each other as they fell.

  Then pandemonium was loose. The pit became a pool of frightful tumult. Lanterns swinging from the gallery suggested unseen horrors hidden amid shadows heavier than waves of dark oil. There were yells and the guttural snarls of brutes made frantic by thirst and the fury of slaying. Hawkes’s voice shouted, “Get a rope and let me down there! Maybe he’s alive yet. I can’t see a dam’ thing.” Then the Rajah’s cousin began shooting — at random — at nothing — blindly — each flash showing fragments of a scene like Dante’s vision of the pits at the Inferno.

  Hawkes snatched F.9’s turban — then Chullunder Ghose’s — then the smocks of F.11 and F.9 and the Prince’s servant’s turban — tore and knotted them into a rope and gave the babu one end.

  “You and them others hang on to it and let me down — not too slow — I’ll be done for if a tiger sees me. Maybe I can see when I get down there. Stop that fool shooting!”

  But the Prince refilled his magazine and had his own way. Blinding flash and echo-cannonading crack continued, even after Hawkes was swinging by a string of turbans, turning as the babu lowered him. He was clinging by one hand, with his rifle in the other.

  “Can’t see a dam’ thing!” he called up, when his feet touched bottom.

  Then the babu: “Wait there, Hawkesey. I will bring a lantern.”

  F.15 and F.11 laid their weight and strength against the rope and F.9 hurried to their aid as Chullunder Ghose grabbed at a lantern and swung himself over. He went down hand over hand, with his naked toes against the masonry, the lantern clattering against the wall. They were both visible, like divers under water — small — foreshortened. Hawkes’s voice: “Steady now. I see one.”

  His express spat blue-white. Stripes — fangs — black-and- yellow phantom with a sound like snapped wires — leaped into the zone of lamplight, fell short, clawing at a rotten skeleton, and lay still.

  “Tigress!” said the babu. His voice boomed. He sounded steady, like a big gun.

  Hawkes’s voice, several notes higher: “Can you see the other?”

  “He is down that tunnel, Hawkesey. I saw his shadow as he stole in.”

  Came the sound of an empty brass shell falling and the snap of the closing breech as Hawkes reloaded. Then again Hawker’s voice:

  “Find the Rajah.”

  The pool of lantern-light went sideways, slowly, while the babu hunted amid shadows. Then it moved back.

  “I have found him. He is stone-dead. I believe his neck was broken.”

  “The Madrasi?”

  “Dead, too.”

  “Can you climb back? Blinkin’ man-eaters in blinkin’ tunnels ain’t a picnic.”

  “I can hear him, Hawkesey. He is clawing at the branches at the far end. We could see him against daylight if we should go in after him.”

  “You’re crazy. If he didn’t kill us we’d be shot by that American.”

  “If we pursue him with the lantern, Hawkesey, he will break through that way. He is thirsty. He has had enough of this place. It is never wise to think the enemy is less afraid than you are.”

  “Have it your own way. Come on.”

  “And I like to let the gods have equal opportunity to swat me like the others. We are all flies on a cosmic window-pane.”

  They vanished down a dark hole, and a tunnel rumbled to their footsteps, until two shots, muffled by a distance, cracked as faintly as whips in a blustery wind. Three minutes later, Hawkes’s voice, tunnel-hollow:

  “The American got him! He broke through. We’re going out at that end. So long.”

  CHAPTER 25. “Accept my humble praises, sahib”

  “That’s a splendid tiger. Did you get permission?”

  Copeland turned and stared at Major Eustace Smith, wet, bleary-eyed from lack of his accustomed sleep, and pompous as an offset to a dirty collar and a two-day growth of whiskers.

  “How are the boils?” he answered.

  Before Smith could answer that, Chullunder Ghose, unturbaned, bloody from thorn-scratches where he had scrambled out of a hole, abominably filthy and so weary that he rolled like a drunkard, came towards him.

  “Salaam, sir,” said the babu. “Did you swim the river?”

  “No, I got wet, dammit, hurrying to stop your mischief! What have you been up to?”

  “Earning you a ribbon!”

  “What the devil do you mean, you vulgar fellow?”

  “Listen,” said the babu. “I am going over there” — he pointed— “to appropriate the champagne that his late lamented Highness of Kutchdullub does not any longer have an opportunity to drink. I am taking with me Hawkesey and Doctor Copeland. Let us hope there is enough champagne to make us all drunk. We deserve it. You will get a ribbon, and you don’t deserve it, but it will look very nice on your dress-suit lapel.”

  Hawkes strolled up, wearier, if anything, than the babu.

  “Morning, sir.”

  “You are both arrested,” said the Major.

  “No, no,” said the babu, “you are much too diplomatic. You have saved a very nasty situation, I assure you.”

  Ram Dass, glancing at the tiger, came and stood as close to Major Smith as tact permitted.

  “Had you shot the tiger — had Hawkes shot it — had the Rajah shot it,” said the babu, “diplomatic priests would have immediately stirred a revolution in a teacup, and it might have been another Sarajevo — who knows? And if you, or I, or Hawkesey, or the Rajah’s cousin, or a common murderer had shot the Rajah, there would certainly have been a bad mess. As it is, the Rajah took advantage of an opportunity to die in manly battle with the poisoner who tried to take his cousin’s life; and I have no doubt that you recommended to the Rajah he should look into the dirty rumors that were flying. It is certain that he acted as a consequence of what you said to him in private conversation. He is stone-dead, so he can’t deny it. And by giving your authority to Doctor Copeland, in a letter that I witnessed, to go tiger- shooting, you have cleverly removed a menace from the countryside without affording opportunity to priests and such-like people to accuse the British of the sacrilege. As an American, does Doctor Copeland give a damn for local prejudices? Not he! And what can be done to him? Nothing! He is diplomatically no one, and a very useful scapegoat. You invited him to shoot the tiger, in my presence! You requested me, in fact, to bring him to relieve your boils with just that purpose, and no other, in your mind before you sent for him. I know it. I shall say that in my confidential report.”

  Smith glanced at Copeland. Copeland grinned and nodded to him.

  “I’m mum.”

  “It is true, there were a tiger and a tigress,” said the babu. “Both of them are dead. The death of one is not accounted for. But I admire immensely your particularly brilliant intention to congratulate the Rajah’s heir immediately and to tell him, if he does not burn this temple, you will ta
ke steps — diplomatic steps, as serious as may be. It is nothing less than statesmanlike of you to think of telling him that if his elephants should draw some fifty or hundred tons of fuel, such a quantity, if burned beneath the dangerously-broken roof, would cause it to collapse completely and to bury a bone of contention — many, many bones, I might say! And I think it noble of you to insist on Hawkesey’s contract being recognized and properly extended, at an increase, by the new regime. Accept my humble praises, sahib. Now, if you permit me, I will lead away my boon companions and get as drunk as quantity permits. I have my leave to go.”

  But Ram Dass interrupted him. “About that contract for the corn—”

  “Oh, to the devil with you!”

  Then the villager came running. “Am I numbered on a pay-roll, sahib? What next? Am I—”

  “Oh, my karma!” said the babu. “C.I.D. is not a bed of roses, is it! Come on, Hawkesey — come on Doctor Copeland — let us drink annihilation to the C.I.D., and politics, and tigers, and to every other dam’ thing!”

  THE END

  THE KING IN CHECK

  OR, AFFAIR IN ARABY

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1. “I’ll make one to give this Faisal boy a hoist”

  CHAPTER 2. “Atcha, Jimgrim sahib! Atcha!”

  CHAPTER 3. “Hum Dekta hai”

  CHAPTER 4. “I call this awful!”

  CHAPTER 5. “Nobody will know, no bouquets”

  CHAPTER 6. “Better the evil that we know...”

  CHAPTER 7. “You talk like a madman!”

  CHAPTER 8. “He’ll forgive anyone who brings him whiskey.”

  CHAPTER 9. “The rest will be simple!”

  CHAPTER 10. “You made a bad break that time”

  CHAPTER 11. “They are all right!”

  CHAPTER 12. “Start something before they’re ready for it!”

  CHAPTER 13. “Bismillah! What a mercy that I met you!”

  CHAPTER 15. “Catch the Algies napping and kick hell out of ’em!”

  CHAPTER 1. “I’ll make one to give this Faisal boy a hoist”

  Whoever invented chess understood the world’s works as some men know clocks and watches. He recognized a fact and based a game on it, with the result that his game endures. And what he clearly recognized was this: That no king matters much as long as your side is playing a winning game. You can leave your king in his corner then to amuse himself in dignified unimportance. But the minute you begin to lose, your king becomes a source of anxiety.

  In what is called real life (which is only a great game, although a mighty good one) it makes no difference what you call your king. Call him Pope if you want to, or President, or Chairman. He grows in importance in proportion as the other side develops the attack. You’ve got to keep your symbol of authority protected or you lose.

  Nevertheless, your game is not lost as long as your king can move. That’s why the men who want to hurry up and start a new political era imprison kings and cut their heads off. With no head on his shoulders your king can only move in the direction of the cemetery, which is over the line and doesn’t count.

  I love a good fight, and have been told I ought to be ashamed of it. I’ve noticed, though, that the folk who propose to elevate my morals fight just as hard, and less cleanly, with their tongue than some of us do with our fists and sinews. I’m told, too, quite frequently that as an American I ought to be ashamed of fighting for a king. Dear old ladies of both sexes have assured me that it isn’t moral to give aid and comfort to a gallant gentleman — a godless Mohammedan, too; which makes it much worse — who is striving gamely and without malice to keep his given word and save his country.

  But if you’ve got all you want, do you know of any better fun than lending a hand while some man you happen to like gets his? I don’t. Of course, some fellows want too much, and it’s bad manners as well as waste of time to inflict your opinion on them. But given a reasonable purpose and a friend who needs your assistance, is there any better sport on earth than risking your own neck to help him put it over?

  Walk wide of the man and particularly of the woman, who makes a noise about lining your pocket or improving your condition. An altruist is my friend James Schuyler Grim, but he makes less noise than a panther on a dark night; and I never knew a man less given to persuading you. He has one purpose, but almost never talks about it. It’s a sure bet that if we hadn’t struck up a close friendship, sounding each other out carefully as opportunity occurred, I would have been in the dark about it until this minute.

  All the news of Asia from Alexandretta to the Persian Gulf and from Northern Turkestan to South Arabia reaches Grim’s ears sooner or later. He earns his bread and butter knitting all that mess of cross-grained information into one intelligible pattern; after which he interprets it and acts suddenly without advance notices.

  Time and again, lone-handed, he has done better than an army corps, by playing chief against chief in a land where the only law is individual interpretation of the Koran.

  But it wasn’t until our rescue of Jeremy Ross from near Abu Kem, that I ever heard Grim come out openly and admit that he was working to establish Faisal, third son of the King of Mecca, as king of just as many Arabs as might care to have him over them. That was the cat he had been keeping in a bag for seven years.

  Right down to the minute when Grim, Jeremy and I sat down with Bin Saud the Avenger on a stricken field at Abu Kem, and Grim and Jeremy played their hands so cleverly that the Avenger was made, unwitting guardian of Jeremy’s secret gold-mine, and Faisal’s open and sworn supporter in the bargain, the heart of Grim’s purpose continued to be a mystery even to me; and I have been as intimate with him as any man.

  He doles out what he has in mind as grudgingly as any Scot spends the shillings in his purse. But the Scots are generous when they have to be, and so is Grim. There being nothing else for it on that occasion, he spilled the beans, the whole beans, and nothing but the beans. Having admitted us two to his secret, he dilated on it all the way back to Jerusalem, telling us all he knew of Faisal (which would fill a book), and growing almost lyrical at times as he related incidents in proof of his contention that Faisal, lineal descendant of the Prophet Mohammed, is the “whitest” Arab and most gallant leader of his race since Saladin.

  Knowing Grim and how carefully suppressed his enthusiasm usually is, I couldn’t help being fired by all he said on that occasion.

  And as for Jeremy, well — it was like meat and drink to him. You meet men more or less like Jeremy Ross in any of earth’s wild places, although you rarely meet his equal for audacity, irreverence and riotous good-fellowship. He isn’t the only Australian by a long shot who upholds Australia by fist and boast and astounding gallantry, yet stays away from home. You couldn’t fix Jeremy with concrete; he’d find some means of bursting any mould.

  He had been too long lost in the heart of Arabia for anything except the thought of Sydney Bluffs and the homesteads that lie beyond to tempt him for the first few days.

  “You fellers come with me,” he insisted. “You chuck the Army, Grim, and I’ll show you a country where the cows have to bend their backs to let the sun go down. Ha-ha! Show you women too — red-lipped girls in sun-bonnets, that’ll look good after the splay-footed crows you see out here. Tell you what: We’ll pick up the Orient boat at Port Said — no P. and O. for me; I’m a passenger aboard ship, not a horrible example! — and make a wake for the Bull’s Kid. Murder! Won’t the scoff† taste good!

  “We’ll hit the Bull’s Kid hard for about a week — mix it with the fellers in from way back — you know — dry-blowers, pearlers,† spending it easy — handing their money to Bessie behind the bar and restless because she makes it last too long; watch them a while and get in touch with all that’s happening; then flit out of Sydney like bats out of hell and hump blue‡ — eh?”

  “Something’ll turn up; it always does. I’ve got money in the bank — about, two thousand here in gold dust with me, — and if what you say’s t
rue, Grim, about me still being a trooper, then the Army owes me three years’ back pay, and I’ll have it or go to Buckingham Palace and tear off a piece of the King! We’re capitalists, by Jupiter! Besides, you fellers agreed that if I shut down the mine at Abu Kem you’d join me and we’d be Grim, Ramsden and Ross.”

  “I’ll keep the bargain if you hold me to it when the time comes,” Grim answered.

  “You bet I’ll hold you to it! Rammy here, and you and I could trade the chosen people off the map between us. We’re a combination. What’s time got to do with it?”

  “We’ve got to use your mine,” Grim answered.

  “I’m game. But let’s see Australia first.”

  “Suppose we fix up your discharge, and you go home,” Grim suggested. “Come back when you’ve had a vacation, and by that time Ramsden and I will have done what’s possible for Faisal. He’s in Damascus now, but the French have got him backed into a corner. No money — not much ammunition — French propaganda undermining the allegiance of his men — time working against him, and nothing to do but wait.”

  “What in hell have the French got to do with it?”

  “They want Syria. They’ve got the coast towns now. They mean to have Damascus; and if they can catch Faisal and jail him to keep him out of mischief they will.”

  “But damn it! Didn’t they promise the Arabs that Faisal should be King of Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and all that?”

  “They did. The Allies all promised, France included. But since the Armistice the British have made a present of Palestine to the Jews, and the French have demanded Syria for themselves. The British are pro-Faisal, but the French don’t want him anywhere except dead or in jail. They know they’ve given him and the Arabs a raw deal; and they seem to think the simplest way out is to blacken Faisal’s character and ditch him. If the French once catch him in Damascus he’s done for and the Arab cause is lost.”

  “Why lost?” demanded Jeremy. “There are plenty more Arabs.”